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Golf may be viewed as a “gentleman’s game,” but a fair amount of the decorum both golfers and spectators are expected to uphold has a tendency to go out the window when the Ryder Cup rolls around. That event has spawned plenty of testy moments over the years, but it’s hard to top the golfer who made his caddie carry a chair to send a message to his opponent.
The inaugural Ryder Cup took place at Worcester Country Club in 1927 and gave golfers hailing from the United States and the United Kingdom a chance to reignite a rivalry stretching back to the 1700s to see who reigned supreme on the links (Ireland was added into the fold in 1973 before Team Europe made its grand debut in 1979).
In the earlier years of the Ryder Cup, the team playing on its home turf usually ended up walking away with the win. However, when the tournament resumed in the wake of the hiatus stemming from World War II, the Americans went on a run that saw them win five consecutive tournaments to extend a winning streak stretching back to 1935 to seven.
As a result, the British golfers who headed to Lindrick Golf Club in England in 1957 were looking to bring that run to an end—and they managed to do exactly that with some help from a Scotsman who pulled one of the pettiest moves possible to send a message to his opponent.
Eric Brown made his caddie get a chair in the middle of a round at the Ryder Cup to protest Tommy Bolt’s slow play
Slow play has been a hot topic of conversation in the golf world in recent years. Brooks Koepka implied a sluggish pace at The Masters threw him off his game at Augusta National in 2023 and Patrick Cantlay has heard it from members of the gallery who’ve been less than thrilled with his tendency to take his sweet, sweet time on the course.
However, it’s certainly not a new issue—as evidenced by what unfolded at the Ryder Cup in 1957.
Eric Brown represented Great Britain in the Ryder Cup on four different occasions between 1953 and 1959 and won every single one of the singles matches he played—including his showdown with Tommy Bolt (who competed for the United States a couple of times) at Lindrick.
Brown (who was known for being a pretty speedy golfer) managed to jump out to a three-hole lead in his match play showdown with Bolt and became convinced his American foe had purposefully started to play at a snail’s pace to throw him off of his game after he ended up trailing.
The British spectators started to shower Bolt with boos after coming to the same conclusion, but it didn’t take Brown long to hatch a plan to gain a psychological edge of his own.
The Scottish golfer was seen relaying a message to his caddie who unexpectedly headed to the clubhouse while Brown spent some time tending to his own bag. When his trusty sidekick returned, he was holding the chair he sat in between shots for the remainder of the round before securing the match with a 4&3 victory.
The two men declined to shake hands when the round ended, and Bolt reportedly remarked “Can’t say I enjoyed the game” before Brown hit him with the perfect parting shot by replying with some version of “I imagine not. You had no hope of beating me.”
Brown’s win helped the British team snap a Ryder Cup drought that had spanned 24 years, and I can’t help but respect the move he pulled en route to securing the victory.